As Chew puts it, Vietnam sold mainly furniture and other lower-value goods to the US, the kind of goods Americans could not be bothered manufacturing, leading to the trade imbalance. “There’s no rationale to this. Maybe someone thinks the Vietnam War is still ongoing,” says Chew, speaking at a seminar on April 5.
US President Donald Trump calls the blanket tariffs imposed on friends and foes alike on April 2 “Liberation Day” for the US economy. From the perspective of Paul Chew of PhillipCapital, this drastic move, with wide-reaching consequences, is more accurately described as the “Day of Infamy”, says the brokerage’s head of research, referring to the phrase used by then President Franklin Roosevelt to describe Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor which ignited the Pacific Theatre of World War Two.
Besides hitting China, the original and still primary target, other countries like Singapore, which buys more from the US than the other way around, are similarly hit with a 10% rate. Other Asean countries face a bigger blow. Vietnam, the so-called “one” in the much-touted “China+1” strategy, is hit with 46% in “reciprocal tariffs”, which is a “discount” rate from the 90% Vietnam is accused of imposing on the US.
